Thomas DietzDirector, Environmental Science and Policy ProgramMichigan State Universityenvironment.msu.eduSymposium on Linking Environmental Research and the Behavioral and Social Sciences25 April 2007Committee on Human Dimensions of Global Change"Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again." Andre GideOf course you were listening, but some things are worth repeating.

Major points: We need both Type 1 (disciplinary) and Type 2 (neodisciplinary) research. Different strategies are required for each. Type 1 research often isnt targeting the right topics and is about an order of magnitude too small.Type 2 research is critical bu has several limiting factors. The biggest may be data.

The MA cartoon of the system to be studied.Source: Carpenter et al. 2006

Consideration of Use?No YesQuest for fundamental understanding?NoYesCommons researchAssessmentsWe are trying to occupy Pasteurs QuadrantAssessments and NRC reports move research toward use value.Disciplinary wind is more problematic.PasteurStakeholder GravityBohrEdisonAfter: Donald Stokes. 1996. Pasteur's Quadrant: Basic Science and Technological Innovation. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution Press.Disciplinary Wind

What are the core theoretical questions that would motivate social, behavioral and economic research on environmental topics that would results in improved understanding of environmental phenomena as well as contributions to the core social science fields?

The assumptions are:We dont have the right questions.If we had the right questions, the science would happen.

We have already identified the questions! Repeatedly! They speak to fundamental science within and between the disciplines!The identification of these questions hasnt yielded nearly enough of the science we need. What evidence is there that new questions will change this?

Theory is hard but it isnt costly. Its the data, training and institutional change that are both hard and costly.

Its useful to distinguish two types of research:1. Environment as an example to which the discipline is applied(e.g. Sociology of the environment)2. Research that looks at the links between coupled human and natural systems creating a new field (or fields)(e.g. human ecology)

The disciplinary machinery could help a lot with problems that can be addressed with Type 1 research.It is ill equipped to address many questions that are Type 2, and these are among the most pressing:-Drivers of environmental change-Vulnerability and resilience-Links between human wellbeing and ecosystem services-Long term coevolution of coupled human and natural systems

So promoting Type 1 and 2 require somewhat different strategies.

An array of disciplines with the most engaged on the left and the least engaged on the right.GeographyAnthropologyEconomicsPolitical SciencePsychologySociologySociology, last 25 years (rough estimates): ASR & AJS have published ~~1800 papers,

Most Type 1 research in the disciplines is not driven by the grand challenges, the assessments, and other priority setting mechanisms.The internal structure of the disciplines are ill-equipped to change thisthe leadership does not engage with these processes.However, the disciplines are historically contingent constructs.Some things dont change, most things do change when examined across ~2 academic generations. (What did your major professors major professor work on?)So change is a cohort process.Two problems: --Getting environment closer to the center of the disciplines--Getting folks to work on the important issues related to environment

Moving from Pidgin to CreoleFor Type 2 research we need to sustain emergent disciplines (neodiscipines)Workers develop a trading language (pidgin) sufficient to get the work doneOver time, this can evolve into a Creole, a full language building on the best of both parents After Peter Galisons Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Mircophysics (1997)

Encouraging Type 2 research is especially urgent.The fundamental problems are not a lack of questions, but a lack of resources on which careers can be built. We need:Sustained funding for neodisciplinary workNSF role is essential but mission agencies are needed too.

Type 2 research, continued.Data that allows articulation between human and ecological systems I would rate this as the top priority. Success of Land Use/ Cover Change research substantially a result of good data readily accessible to good researchers. I think this is strong evidence of the effects of good data. Many wasted opportunities as a result of hubris or defending borders NEON; Environment module in General Social Survey/ International Social Survey ProgramLTERs are doing better but still in early development. WATERS?Other modalities

Type 2 research, continued.High prestige venues for scholarship.Lots of good journals but something to rival the top disciplinary journals is neededScience, Nature and PNAS of course, butWe need the environmental social science equivalent of Ambio, ES&T, Frontiers in Ecology and Environment.

Some local examples.STIRPAT research program(www.stirpat.org)-Conscious effort to speak across disciplines, engage with diverse communities.-Publications in American Sociological Review and Social Science Quarterly but also Ambio, Ecological Economics, Frontiers, Human Ecology Review and Journal of Industrial Ecology, PNAS.Simple starting point that makes sense to all disciplines then elaborated.Taking on questions/ hypotheses from multiple disciplines.Viewing the effort as a research program and not a just a set of papers.

Commons research is another example at a larger scale.Public participation/ deliberation/ decision making may become one too.

MSU strategy: Working with and transforming the disciplines New faculty hires (infecting departments with new approaches) Job description set by interdisciplinary team to fill critical gaps ESPP pays for position for five years with no teaching load for ESPP Mortgage model: Department assumes position funding after ~5 years Search committee joint between ESPP and department Department is tenure home, ESPP advisory So far: 2 faculty in risk, 1 in soil physics, 4-6 searches underway in coupled human and natural systems/ modeling. First two hires have the Starr award, a UNEP GEO fellowship and a Robert Wood Johnson fellowship between them (in first two years)

MSU strategy, continuedDoctoral specialization Four course (minor) open to students on 40 Ph.D. programs Margaret Leinens T-shaped graduate student with discipline as the base and interdisciplinary program as the crossbar. Cohort effect central: We use Gallisons linguistic metaphor. Its less what they learn than the intellectual connections they make to each other and to the evolution of the science globally

Getting data for Type 2 research is very difficult. Consider just units of analysis.EcologySocial sciencesAny alignment above individual and below globe is a graphic artifact.

MSUs Geospatial Information Support TeamData HubOne site to find many layers of high quality data in ready to use formFinding GIS data on the webWeb links with annotationMSU Data Viewer/ archiveMichiganNationalWorldPosting DataA location for MSU researchers to publish GIS dataMetadata creation Also training and support

Major points: We need both Type 1 (disciplinary) and Type 2 (neodisciplinary) research Type 1 research often isnt targeting the right topics and is about an order of magnitude too small.Type 2 research is critical has several limiting factors but the biggest may be data.

Noble friends, That which combined us was most great, and let not a leaner action rend us. Whats amiss,May it be gently heard. When we debateOur trivial differences loud, we do commitMurder in healing wounds. Then, noble partners,The rather for I earnestly beseech,Touch you the sourest points with sweetest terms,Nor curstness grow to the matter.Triumvir Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, Antony and Cleopatra, Act II, Scene IIHeeding LepidusJohn Hopkins, James Hayes, RSCBut to be optimistic:Well, the first days are the hardest days,don't you worry anymoreWhen life looks like Easy Streetthere is danger at your doorR. Hunter and J. Garcia

Part of overcoming these mis-understandings is to think about where we fit in the array of research. The old Applied/ Basic that haunts us probably not a useful classification for the 21st century, indeed it may never have been helpful.We want to locate squarely in Pasteurs quadrant, asking fundamental questions while producing results that are useful.Most robust portion of GIStWeb Links: Not here to reinvent the wheel web links to key data sitesData Viewers: Base data and thematic areas that are of great interest (ever expanding based upon user feedback) 3 geographic regions Viewers serve 2 different needs (Clip, Zip, and Shipor data extraction for use in research and curriculum AND simply a viewer/interactive geoprocessing)Posting data: MSU created data can be integrated into the Data Viewers outreach capacity (recent requirement of grants e.g. EPA STAR, NASA)Proper citation: Critical for GISt sustainabilityMetadata: Good data dependent on good metadata